7 Misconceptions About Google And SEO

7 Misconceptions About Google And SEO

The field of SEO in the past has been very famous for false information or misunderstanding. This is largely due to Google because it is like a black box containing a lot of arduous algorithms, experiences, and measurements.

But now, Google is starting to become more transparent through many public activities with the SEO community.

This article aims to eliminate the pre-existing misconceptions of many people in the SEO community. Here is a list of 7 common rumors about Google and SEO as well as why we think so.

7-misconceptions-about-google-and-seo1. Google penalizes duplicate content

The penalty for duplicate content does not exist. Google does not penalize websites with duplicate content.

Google understands that duplicate content is a natural part of the web. It will automatically index the highest quality pages and match the searchers to return query results.

Unless you are deliberately creating duplicate content to adjust rankings. As a result, the current page rank (already in good rankings) is changed by the replacement version.

SEO can inform Google about the page they want or don’t want to index for managing purposefully created duplicate content. This can be done by some rules or sitemap construction.

Relevant article: Why Are You Not Copying Articles From Other Websites? 

2. Google respects Canonical URLs as the preferred version for indexing

7-misconceptions-about-google-and-seo

You set the preferred version of the URL to index through the Canonical tag, which does not mean that the page will be selected by Google for indexing.

Canonical tags are considered by Google to be a signal for a favorite page but are not always respected. Canonical versions may be flagged.

Google may choose a different page than the one you tagged with Canonical to become a better candidate in search results.

In such cases, you need to consider whether the Canonical tagging page is the page you want to be indexed. If so, look at all the signals to check if they point to this version. It is even more important to ensure the consistency of Google to the page tagged with Canonical.

3. Punishment occurs from algorithms

We often think things around Google Panda, Phantom, or Fred… when updated is often penalized websites.

There is no such thing as punishment, it’s just recalculation. It’s like a black box with a recipe built in, when you put something weird in, it changes. The proof here is that your rankings change. The increase or decrease of rankings is due to the formula you set as true, reasonable, or false.

And the black box has changed to make it work better, which makes what appears a little different. That doesn’t mean you have to be punished!

4. Google has the top 3 ranking factors

There is some information that: links, content, and RankBrain are the top 3 ranking factors. But Mueller stated that this information is no longer true over time.

Focusing on the individual ranking signals is not helpful because the algorithm as well as the user is increasingly complex and sophisticated. Instead, SEOer should focus on optimizing websites to improve user experience.

This work is required for users and needs to update the latest developments from Google. This is also the reason why specialized SEO companies can help you get to the top faster because they often receive the latest information about SEO & Google.

5. Google’s Sandbox applies filters when indexing new web pages

7-misconceptions-about-google-and-seo

Another misconception comes from the way Google treats new websites while indexing. The SEO community said that Google applied a separate filter for these pages to prevent spam pages immediately after launch.

Google’s Mueller said no filters have been applied. However, there may be a set of algorithms used to index and rank new websites.

6. Use the Disavow file to maintain a link profile of the site

An important element of SEO’s responsibility is to truncate a site’s backlink profile by rejecting low-quality links or spam.

Over the years, Google’s algorithms have become more aware of low-quality backlinks and know when they should be ignored.

For now, you should only use the Disavow file when a site receives manual actions to remove the offending link.

For now, you should only use Disavow when a site has received manual action to remove infringing links.

7. Backlink value comes from a high-quality domain

Building a successful link should be judged by the capacity and relevance of the backlinks pointing to the landing page first. And backlinks from authoritative domains are evaluated later

If an article is of poor quality, and unrelated to your site, Google will ignore the backlink from there because of inappropriate context.

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